Whats cooking?

[coquille]

Chrose,
can you tell/explain to me how to turn a refrigerator into a cold smoker. I want to start making sausages and the only thing i don't get is the smoker.Talking about gardens and herbs, here is a tip : you know the cress stuff you can buy in tiny boxes for decoration...well it's just sprouted seeds. The basil cress is great, one box divided in 6 or 8 portons , planted in the garden gives me a adequate basil supply for the whole summer. Try it.This also goes for the shiso ect...

[cape chef]

[quote=Anneke]

Originally Posted by cape chef

It's been a while since we discussed technique and whats going on in our kitchens.

Lets talk about food, our menu's our most challenging dishes and what we find satisfying in our work?

QUOTE]

One of the most rewarding projects for me at the restaurant is to come up with stuffed pastas, miniatures that we use as various garnishes. Fillings have covered the spectrum of langoustines to porcini to sunchokes. The fun part is the pasta itself. I have finally come up with my own ratios and technique, and I'm comfortable flavouring the dough with just about anything. I usually dessicate the flavouring agent, grind it to a powder, and modify the moisture content accordingly. Some of the fun ones: carrot, squid ink, porcini, and my fave, mousseron mushroom.

Not unlike bread, I find pasta making very relaxing (unless i'm prepping for 500)

I do a mini grilled artichoke,feta and kalamata olive ravioli that I float in tomato consomme as an app.

Coquille,

An old friend of mine made a cold smoker from a fridge by boring a hole on the side towards the bottom. then running dryer tubbing from the hole to the grill. When smoking he would run the piping through a iced cooler that would cool down the smoke.The stuff was pretty good, salmon mostly.

Spoonbread, what are you doing with the broths on your menu? Can you share the smoked Leek and Parm broth with us?

[Pete]

At NECI we used to use an old refrigerator as a cold smoker. It worked great. Like the one CC described it had a hole cut out towards the bottom which was fitted with a dryer hose. The other end attached near the top of our firebox containing an old, coil style hot plate, on which we would place a tin pie plate filled with soaked wood chips. To cool the smoke further we placed ice in perf pans and allowed the smoke to filter through those. At the top of the fridge there was another hole cut out to allow the smoke to escape. This was covered by a chimmey top. This set is still one of the best I have worked with. As far as I am concerned it works as well as many of the "high-tech" smokers out there.

Regular Joe as for mint, I have grown it in numerous places. I always try to find a spot where I don't mind it taking over, but if I need to put it close to other things then I surround it with buried plastic edging. This keeps it from spreading by the underground tendrils it sends out. The great thing about mint though is, I have found, that it grows many places where other plants won't or can't, making it good ground cover in places such as under decks or other shady, rocky areas. We did this at my parents house. Couldn't get anything to cover the barren ground under the deck until we planted mint. Within 3 years it had completely blanketed the area. As an added bonus, there is constantly a pitcher of mint iced tea in the fridge in summer time. Nothing is better than mint iced tea after mowing the lawn in 90 degree weather......unless, of course.....it's mint/lemon balm iced tea!!!!

[chrose]

Originally Posted by coquille

Chrose,
can you tell/explain to me how to turn a refrigerator into a cold smoker. I want to start making sausages and the only thing i don't get is the smoker.

Coquille, the smoker I am talking about is a cold smoker, you can smoke sausages quite nicely, but remember it's cold, not hot.
The method is as Pete described it. That's where I got the method from NECI, DavidMiles to be exact. What he used (back in '87 anyway)was a "Little Chief" smoker with a dryer duct running into a hole in the side of the small refrigerator. A 100w lightbulb was added to the refrig. to keep the 80ºF or so temp that you want in there.

[Peachcreek]

I finally tossed out an old Nor-Lake 2 door refrigerator that I hoped someone wanted to take for free. No takers. It would have made an awesome smoker, with all the racks and brackets intact it would have held over 100 lbs. I even had the compressor removed. Sad. It cost me another $125. to get it hauled to the recycler.